Over the course of several weeks, I published a series of posts analyzing Robert George’s article, “What Is Marriage?“, which appeared on pages 245-286 of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.

Robert George authored The Manhattan Declaration and is the Founding Chairman of Maggie Gallagher’s National Organization for Marriage, but don’t let that fool you. He’s an intellectual heavyweight, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University. A recent profile in the New York Times dubbed him America’s “most influential conservative Christian thinker.” “What Is Marriage?” has been hailed as “a definitive defense of the institution of traditional marriage. Just two months after its publication, it’s become the most downloaded paper of the past year at the Social Science Research Network. What follows is my reply to George.

February 24, 2011: Reply to George: I. Introduction. Blogging is inherently presumptuous: Look at me! I wrote this! You should read it! But it feels especially presumptuous asking people to read a long, multi-part rebuttal to an academic article. I hope you’ll do it anyway, for several important reasons: George’s article has substance, his article may improve the equality of your own thinking on marriage, his article will be influential, and I could use your help and feedback.

February 18, 2011: Reply to George: VI. Marriage = Man + Woman. This is it. This is the meat you’ve been waiting for. This is the next generation of anti-gay talking points. Because this is where Robert George tries to prove only a man and a woman can marry.

February 20, 2011: Interlude: A Quick Story of Rationalism, Empiricism, and Balance. In which I bring up an example of how dangerous extreme rationalism can be. I think we see a milder version of it in George’s work, when he starts with a known conclusion (i.e., Church doctrine is correct) and attempts to reason his way toward it, disregarding how well the outcome matches reality.